All the Other Ghosts (Boyxboy Superhero AU Fanfic (Klaine))

Chapter 26

It was a few weeks back, long before that catastrophic bank heist, the ceremony of exchanging keys. Kurt had mentioned it, trying too hard to sound casual about it, and Blaine had confirmed that it was probably a good idea while completely failing to sound casual about it himself; so one morning they sat in Cooper's kitchen, all embarrassed flitting eye contact and too-tentative fingers and mouths that didn't know what to do with themselves, pushing keys along the breakfast bar at each other between their coffee mugs. Kurt's squirming blush, Blaine's laugh balling up inside his chest to escape, sheer joy as he turned a slip of cut metal between his fingers and it meant too much.

It would be madness, at this point in their relationship - they met a grand total of eight months ago - to try to put a ring on Kurt's finger, though the symbolism of it (unbroken, endless) is something that feels so right. He likes having a key on his key ring, though. He likes having Kurt's on his. There might be, however, something too symbolic about a key, something a little inarguable about the idea of unlocking. No wonder Kurt blushed.

So he lets himself into Kurt and Rachel's apartment, where Rachel is sitting on the couch with her feet on the coffee table, iPad on her hunched knees, stabbing away at it. "You try him." she snaps at him. "He's being completely unreasonable, I refuse to waste any further sympathy on his moods."

Blaine gives her a wary look, and treads a carefully wide path around her snarling aura to get to Kurt's door. Returned to his own apartment and back at work, and for the first time in nearly six years actually sleeping most of most nights now, Kurt's actually been almost more mellow than Blaine's ever known him, pliable and happy as a cat in sunlight whenever they're together, anxiously affectionate before Blaine goes out, warmly, sweetly delighted whenever he returns. But then Kurt and Rachel's relationship has always been tempestuous. Given compatible sexualities they could probably manage the kind of romance that rattles windows and smashes vases and leads to great sex and short marriages; as best friends and roommates, as a secret superhero and a vociferously anti-superhero student reporter, they clearly adore each other and yet fight like cats in a sack. Movie nights sitting in between Kurt and Rachel, both of them arms folded and one crossed leg twitching irritably, staring through the screen and waiting for the next explosion, is actually Blaine's least favourite thing in the world. He'll take any gang fight, bank heist or super threat over waiting for which one of them will boil over first. Drugs busts. Attempted homicides. Littering, even . . .

He knocks, very gently, on Kurt's door. "Kurt? It's me."

He hears - movement, and then a pause, and then the door unlocks and cracks open. "Inside," Kurt murmurs, and Rachel yells over, "Stop acting like I'd contaminate your room, I don't have girl cooties!"

"Nor are you yet a functioning adult!" Kurt spits back, jerks Blaine in and slams the door behind him. The lock snaps closed. He bristles there, one arm in a sling and mouth pouted furious, and then says, "Don't you dare step on anything. I can't let her in, she's a one woman avalanche waiting to happen and how the hell would I even explain it - ?"

Blaine - stares.

There's a map of New York stuck over Kurt's bed, covered in pins and mug shots tied together with coloured thread; there are articles cut from newspapers and what looks like snippets of police reports stuck around it and laying across the bed itself; the floor is stacked with papers, Kurt's laptop appears to have thirty open tabs, and there are a stack of writeable CDs and two memory sticks Blaine hasn't seen before next to it, on the usually pristine and currently paper-covered chaos of Kurt's desk . . .

Blaine says, "How . . . how do you explain this?"

He squints at the photos stuck to the map. Some of them are of corpses, floating in the river. Blaine pulls a face, and Kurt gives the photographs a mouth-twitched look. "I'm trying to work things out. I can't go out like this, I can still do something to help."

"Work out . . . what?"

Kurt's eyes track the map. "Where they're making supers, and what the hell the real cost actually is."

Blaine stares at the map, at the jostling pins, at the highlighted piers, at the places Kurt's circled near the redevelopment projects on the West Side. God, he thinks, Kurt Hummel, you really can't be left without stimulation, can you . . . ?

"You said we weren't detectives."

"I think we need to be. We can't check every building until we find the right one, we hardly even know what we're looking for. Only -" He stops, tilts his head with his eyebrows tight at that map. "I'm beginning to guess . . ."

Blaine looks at the map, tries to make sense of it, looks at the photographs again a little uneasily. "Bodies," Kurt says. "I asked Finn to get the information for me, bit by bit. People have been turning up in the water, a lot of them, for the last few months. They always do, but there are - patterns. It's a lot of the kinds of people who don't always get missed, people who're out alone and they're vulnerable like that. Known drug addicts, prostitutes, homeless people, petty criminals. The autopsies are weird, a lot of them have recent track marks but not always any known street drugs in their systems. I - I guessed. When David said it was a dangerous procedure, and when Puckerman said he'd been told he 'wasn't any good' . . . they're experimenting. It's not a finalised procedure. Which means - there could've been quite a few people who, um . . . 'weren't any good'. Puckerman's good at escaping from things, he got out of prison too. Other people might not be - able to."

Photos of faces, photos of bodies. Blaine stares. "They're - murdering and dumping people?"

"Some of the autopsies are weird," Kurt says quietly. "I think the procedure . . . I don't think all of them could be volunteers. Not for something this dangerous and scary. Some of them, maybe there are different procedures, maybe they're more sure about some of the powers they're handing out. Not all of them. Some don't survive the process. Maybe they weren't meant to, if it was an experiment. And some of them - aren't what they wanted."

"How many?"

"I don't know that I can account for everyone. I don't know that everyone is connected, I'm only spec-"

"How many?"

Kurt touches the back of his arm. He says softly, "I'm pretty certain at least twenty-two. I - do mean that as the very lowest estimate."

Photos of faces, photos of bodies. "In how long?"

"I think, um. I don't think Puckerman was the first, and I first fought him ten months ago. So I think around a year."

Blaine stares. "Do you . . . have you . . ."

Kurt takes a little breath, and lifts his hand from Blaine's arm again. "They're increasingly similar dumping patterns, besides the correlating autopsies. I've been checking the tidal data, where they washed up, look, they all start turning up further south and kind of scattered - the colours show the dates they were found - but as time goes on the cops are finding them a little further north, a little bit closer to this area on the West Side, currents from here and here would bring them there . . . it'll be henchidiots lower down the food chain who take the bodies out for dumping. There'll be rules, and they'll mostly follow them, but they'll get lazier the longer they go on undetected, it always happens, it's how we spot drugs stashes on the move, people just get lazy over time if nothing's gone wrong yet. It's also why some superheroes take to leaving their costume in a bag under their bed which we do have to have a conversation about, by the way."

"Oh, uh, ah, do we?"

"They got lazy." Kurt continues, eyes narrowed at the map and Blaine now squirming. "They're driving less of a distance to do the dumping, and they're doing it all from about the same place now, I guess one of these piers along here. They should be doing it from somewhere different each time, they really haven't thought this through."

"You would make a much better serial killer than them," Blaine assures him, and Kurt cuts him a look, then back to the map.

"So we have options. We could take a look at these piers, try to catch some crooks in the act and follow them back again. Or we can search through likely spots near Penn Station, which is where David said they'd be; I guess they need somewhere soundproof, somewhere people won't think twice about comings and goings at weird times of the day and night, I don't know how much space they need though, how much equipment . . ."

"This is, by the way, incredible. I mean, it's seriously horrific. But you are a genius."

"Mm. I think I might be, a little bit."

"Would you like me to get you a drink or anything while I'm here?"

"We're still having that conversation, Blaine."

"You're absolutely certain I can't distract you from it?"

Kurt begins, one-handed, sorting photographs and files on his bed to make space. "Sit. Blaine - I mean, Jesus, you know what you're playing with."

There's enough space cleared, so, like a shamed dog, he sits, hands curled around the edge of the mattress. "I . . . yes. I do."

Kurt sits next to him, taps his little stack of papers neat on his leg, and sets it to one side. "Do you . . ." He watches Blaine's face, attentive grey-green eyes a little worried. "I haven't known how to ask for a while. Do you want Cooper to know? I know . . . I know my family do, and it's - maybe not fair, this, on you. Would it, would it make it easier for you . . ."

". . . no." He closes his eyes, shakes his head. "No, that's not what I - no, I don't want him to know. He would freak out. He never knows how much of a big brother to be, I really don't think this is something he can really - deal with. And I don't have the relationship with my parents like you do with your dad, Kurt, it's not like they need to know, and it's just . . . the fewer people who know, the safer everyone is. Right?"

"So . . . do you want to tell me why you had our costumes under your bed? You've got the bottom of the wardrobe and that air vent in the bathroom, why . . ."

"Why were you looking under my bed?"

"Because I dropped a sock. Excuse me for being clumsy while dressing with this." Kurt waves the sling at him. "I dropped a sock and I - remembered it, the bag, as soon as I saw it, from that night in the hospital. And it turns out it was a good thing I did see it, I - I know you're not taking this lightly, you get that this is dangerous, why - ?"

Blaine doesn't really know how to start. He doesn't really know if there is a single reason he can give. He stares at the floor, and he can feel Kurt watching his face, until Kurt says quietly, "My costume was in there too."

Blaine's eyes slink to the other side of the floor, even further from Kurt. Kurt's hand touches his on the bed, then his fingers slip through Blaine's, squeeze.

Blaine squeezes back.

"That first - morning, I left you in the hospital. You - Mike had to sedate you. Do you remember - ?"

Kurt's palm presses over his hand. "Not well. But yes."

"I got home . . . I hadn't slept yet. I was kind of a mess. I just - I just tossed the bag under and fell asleep on top. I didn't think about it. I just didn't, I'm sorry, I didn't. All I was thinking about was -"

A man who should have been dead because of Blaine but for luck, and Kurt, Kurt, Dad don't be mad don't be mad Dad please please -

Kurt presses his fingers through his. Blaine hangs his head.

". . . and the next night - I just didn't want to touch it. I'm sorry. I know it's childish. I just didn't even want to touch it -"

"Okay." Kurt says, quietly.

"And when I did pull it out and open it - your costume was in there. All - cut up and -"

"Okay," Kurt says, his thumb stroking Blaine's hand.

". . . it almost got comforting, eventually." Blaine says, to the floor. "I don't know, I don't know, okay, it was like sleeping with a body under the bed but - but at least I knew where it was, it was . . . in a deeply messed up way it was kind of good that it was there, I couldn't see it but I knew it was there. And then you were sleeping there and . . . and I was just trying not to think about it at all. It's not there anymore. I moved it when I started going out again."

"I know. I thought maybe you were doing that just because you knew I was in there watching you."

"I think I just - didn't need it there anymore. Reminding me."

"Blaine," Kurt says, tugging his hand a little. "There's enough memory of the bad things already. There always is. You don't need to make extra mementos of them as well."

Blaine looks at Kurt, Kurt who always wears the Ghost's scars, and Kurt gives him one of those small, closed-mouthed smiles, hopeful that everything will be okay; Blaine leans up and kisses him on it, because he's alive and happy and safe and there, and Kurt just holds his hand, kisses back, when Blaine lifts his head his eyes are closed and there's still the glow of smile about his cheeks.

Kurt whispers, as Blaine ducks his head in a little closer again, nudging his nose off Kurt's, "Okay?"

"Okay." Blaine whispers back, and catches Kurt's cheek to kiss him again, and Kurt holds his hand tight, and Blaine - kisses him, feels the rise of the pitch in Kurt's response, thinks, Oh, yes, please . . .

And then from the next room they hear a frustrated strangled scream, and something thumping down. Kurt starts, jerks to look at the door too quick and hisses, putting his hand to his chest, and Blaine blinks at the door, stands up, skips over Kurt's piles of 'detective work' on the floor and unlocks the door as Kurt says, "Blaine -"

Rachel's kicked a pile of magazines off the coffee table and she's got her head buried in her arms on top of her bent knees, a tight little ball of fury. Blaine doesn't have a clue what to do but Kurt touches his side, brushes past him, walks over and sits next to her, silently puts an arm around her.

Rachel says into her knees, "I'm going to fail my course."

Kurt rubs her arm. "Of course you're not. It's just one assignment."

She holds his arm, stuffs her face into his shoulder. Apparently they're not having an extended make-out and whatever might follow, then, and Blaine, a little ruefully, closes Kurt's bedroom door behind himself. "My teacher hates me and she's going to fail me. She said I haven't got the guts of an investigative reporter, she said I just don't have the hunger for it -"

"Rachel, you will succeed because you will make damn well sure you succeed and we both know it. No-one does hunger like you do."

Rachel mumbles into Kurt's arm, "She said I haven't got the balls for it."

Kurt says, "What on earth would you want those for anyway? I fail to see how they would help your writing."

Blaine - grins, while Rachel's shoulders shake a laugh, and he heads over to the fridge. "You guys want a drink of anything . . . ?"

Rachel sniffs, and sits up, keeps Kurt's arm through hers while she wipes her cheeks off with a palm. "I would love an iced tea, thank you. I need a killer project to pass this assignment and show her, I need some hard-boiled steel-stomached serious journalism . . . she thinks I just write wussy opinion pieces, I need something real."

Kurt watches Rachel's face and twitches a little smile for her, as Blaine walks over with a can of iced tea for Rachel and a can of Diet Coke for him and Kurt to share, perching on the arm of the sofa next to Kurt. Rachel takes the can, brushes her hair back and sits upright, sniffing, snapping it open. Blaine passes the Coke to Kurt for a sip and says, "You could write about -"

Kurt quickly swallows his mouthful. "Neither of you are allowed to mention the word 'superhero' or I swear to god I'm just locking you both in here to have it out and finally end it."

"He supports criminals!"

"They're trying to help people!"

"Maybe your teachers just don't want to read another article on superheroes from you Rachel, because god knows I'm sick enough of hearing about them!" Kurt snaps, and stabs the can up at Blaine with a glare of 'look what you did'. But Rachel - stops, blinking her dark-wet eyelashes, and swallows some tea, and for a moment she doesn't say anything.

Then she says to the coffee table, "Maybe you're right."

Kurt looks uneasily at her, like she might yet turn on him. ". . . really?"

"Something different," she murmurs to the coffee table. "Something to show them that I'm not all about opinion pieces on the superhero menace, something -"

Blaine mutters, "They're not a men-" and Kurt hits him in the arm.

"- something different, something . . ."

She picks up her iPad again, belts back some iced tea and puts the can on the coffee table. Kurt slips a coaster under it and says, "Is the crisis averted for one more evening?"

Rachel grunts at her iPad, apparently engrossed in a new train of thought. Kurt rolls his eyes, and Blaine dries his hand, condensation-damp from the can, on the leg of his pants before offering it to Kurt to help him up. "Come on," Kurt murmurs to him, tugging him by the hand for his bedroom door. "We were in the middle of something, after all . . ."

Making out after all. Blaine beams all the way back inside.